She watched as Alfonzo’s hands snaked up the bearded interloper’s back, caressing her like a seahorse caresses his young after carrying them for their two-to-four-week gestation period, because it’s male seahorses that get pregnant, not female ones.

She choked back tears as he stroked the harlot’s long, luxurious beard. How she wished that was her beard he was stroking. Of course, she did not have a beard, being a professor of theology rather than a circus performer. But he could stroke her other body hair, couldn’t he? Her sensibly bobbed brown locks, her barely visible downy upper-lip hair, the wispy tufts under her arms and finally – she barely dared imagine – her delicate and mysterious hoo-ha. Just thinking the word gave her a thrill. It had an earthy sensuality to it, a deep and primal power that spoke to the very fabric of her nature. Hoo-ha. She trembled silently. Hoo-ha.